Notes on marketing strategies used on teens.

1. Marketing to Teens - Advertising Strategies
Advertisers have many methods to try and get you to buy their products. Lots of times, what they are selling is a
lifestyle, or an image, rather than the product. Here are some tricks of the trade.
Ideal Kids (or families) - always seem perfect. The kids are Heart Strings - ads that draw you into a story and make you
really hip looking, with the hottest fashions, haircuts and feel good, like the McDonalds commercial where the dad and
toys. Ideal families are all attractive and pleasant looking -- his son are shoveling their driveway and the son treats his
and everyone seems to get along! Ideal kids and families poor old dad to lunch at McDonalds when they are done.
represent the types of people that kids watching the ad would
like themselves or their families to be. Sounds Good - music and other sound effects add to the
excitement of commercials, especially commercials aimed at
Family Fun - a product is shown as something that brings kids. Those little jingles, that you just can't get out of your
families together, or helps them have fun together; all it takes head, are another type of music used to make you think of a
is for Mum or Dad to bring home the "right" food, and a ho- product. Have you ever noticed that the volume of
hum dinner turns into a family party. commercials is higher than the sound for the program that
follows?
Excitement - who could ever have imagined that food could
be so much fun? One bite of a snack food and you're surfing Cartoon Characters - Tony the Tiger sells cereal and the
in California, or soaring on your skateboard! Nestlés Quick Bunny sells chocolate milk. Cartoons like
these make kids identify with products.
Star Power - your favorite sports star or celebrity is telling
you that their product is the best! Kids listen, not realizing Weasel Words - by law, advertisers have to tell the truth, but
that the star is being paid to promote the product. sometimes, they use words that can mislead viewers. Look
for words in commercials like: "Part of..." "The taste of
Bandwagon - join the crowd! Don't be left out! Everyone is real....." "Natural...." "New, better tasting....." "Because we
buying the latest snack food: aren't you? care..." There are hundreds of these deceptive phrases -- how
many more can you think of?
Scale - is when advertisers make a product look bigger or
smaller than it actually is. Omission - where advertisers don't give you the full story
about their product. For example, when a Pop Tart claims to
be "part" of a healthy breakfast, it doesn't mention that the
Put Downs - when you put down your competition's product
breakfast might still be healthy whether this product is there
to make your own product seem better.
or not.
Facts and Figures - when you use facts and statistics to
Are You Cool Enough? - this is when advertisers try to
enhance your product's credibility.
convince you that if you don't use their products, you are a
nerd. Usually advertisers do this by showing people who
Repetition - advertisers hope that if you see a product, or look uncool trying a product and then suddenly become hip
hear its name over and over again, you will be more likely to looking and do cool things.
buy it. Sometimes the same commercial will be repeated over
and over again.
Source: Some of the above information was adapted, with permission, from the Center for Media Literacy.
© 2009 Media Awareness Network